“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Wednesday, 18 April 2018

Review of 'Cocoa Sugar' by Young Fathers

Eclectic Edinburgh experimentalists Young Fathers
attempt to make music that’s more ‘normal’.

I
still haven’t listened to Young Fathers’ 2014 Mercury-prize winning album Dead. You’d think someone who claims to
be a music connoisseur would get their act together and listen to such a
noteworthy album, but I’ve been too busy juggling the responsibilities of being
a brain surgeon and astronaut on top of running this humble blog.

Anyhow,
I wasn’t going to let this new album slip by me. The singles leading up to this
release all sounded very different, so I had no clue what to expect – whilst
‘Lord’ seemed to be piano gospel interspersed with ominous bass blasts, ‘Toy’
was a mix of jittery synths and cartoonish hybrid rap-singing that wouldn’t
seem out of place on a Gorillaz album. And this album, according to a Skinny interview, was supposed to be their attempt at ‘normal’ music?

The
songs are normal only in the sense that they follow familiar verse-chorus-verse-chorus
structures (for the most part) and rarely break the four minute mark. Other
than that, they’re still making nutty genre-bending music. Whilst often
described as a hip hop group, there’s little rapping or conventional
beatsmithing to be found on Cocoa Sugar.
Their sound is a cocktail of styles containing hints of indie, r&b and
electronica. It’s streamlined in it’s poppy structuring, but similarly more
diverse than ever in its palette of sounds.

Ally’s
vocal delivery meanwhile is excitingly creative. He deliberately stammers the
word ‘stammer’ on the purposely
playful and fidgety track ‘Toy’, whilst letting tremolo effects distort the
chorus of ‘Tremolo’. At times, the delivery brings a whole new meaning to
lyrics, as on ‘Wow’ in which the uttering of ‘it’s so amazing’ is distinctly monotone as if mocking people’s
growing boredom with the amazing world around them. Young Fathers tend to not
shove their beliefs and opinions in your face – they prefer to leave things up
to personal interpretation. It’s quite refreshing to hear a band that can be
deep without feeling that they need to preach something.

All
in all, there isn’t much to fault on Cocoa
Sugar. Young Fathers have shown that they’re definitely one of the most
orginal acts out there nowadays, and that original can still sound accessible.